"I asked him what he was thinking about," Gibbs said. "He said obviously this was a tremendously inspirational story, a story with a happy ending."

As a parent, to watch a miner's son waiting for him to come out of a mine that he'd been trapped in for almost 70 days when people for a long time thought they might be lost was tremendously inspirational.

Watching people come together to put their best effort forward to save these miners was inspiring. We've had companies in the United States that have assisted the government of Chile in this effort, agencies like NASA that have also been involved. The president is enormously proud of their efforts, of the efforts of the government of Chile, and hopefully will be in contact with some of the CEOs of those companies shortly.